Scorched Earth, Savage Skies
by Mark 'Manix' Odell
Summary: The world is no more. Umbrella have ended the world, and in its monster infested ruins only a few survivors fight to survive...to persist; Two of these people are Leon S Kennedy and Claire Redfield....PLEASE R&R!
1. Default Chapter

Imagine a city. Imagine a decimated city. Imagine a hollowed out, burnt shell of a city. The sky was perpetually dark, wind blew softly across the river and worked its way into the various nooks and crannies that the upright buildings still possessed. Many buildings were still upright, but nobody had set foot in them for years.

The city was the anti-Manhattan, a skyline monstrous and pale against a dark, cloudy sky. The empty streets were silent and numb, waste paper skipping across the roads when prompted by the wind. Burnt out cars adorned street corners, shop windows smashed, windows and doors boarded up.

Softly, almost mockingly, an old radio abandoned on the Ironmongers shop front crackled into life, playing a crackly, thirty-second excerpt from 'What a wonderful World' before shorting out and fading again.

Nothing lived in this town.

Apart from its undead inhabitants, shuffling out of shop doorways, lurching through alleys and into the streets, a cancerous plague upon the city. Plaintive moans floated through the air, the cry of a lost soul.

Leon sighed, admiring what had once been a fine looking city from the open hatch of the Helicopter as it headed east, to the financial district.

He turned to his right, where Jill, Claire and Luke Bremen, the other member of their patrol sat, all waiting for the helicopter to drop them off.

Leon reloaded his Colt M16, and slung it over his shoulder. After a certain amount of thought, he slung his AK-47 around his neck. Never knew when you needed the extra weaponry. As well as his ammo for both of the weapons, he had two grenades clipped to his belt. 

He felt the wind gently massage his face, and closed his eyes as if deep in thought. The weather was always reliable, it pissed down sometimes, but apart from that it was always pretty dry and clear. During the winter it was cold, but it was currently early summer – so it was warm. 

The problem is that summer conjures up images of children dancing in the sun, barbecue parties, sunbathing under a hot summer sun. This description certainly did not apply here.

"Ready?" Jill asked, disrupting Leon's thoughts, and he quickly turned to her.

"Yeah" he said, giving her a lopsided grin "Just about" 

He looked over the city for a few seconds before turning back.

"Just wondering what the city would have looked like if the whole country hadn't gone to hell"

He was part of the resistance, part of a small resistance that still held out in the smoking remains of Gregaville, a town practically pounded to dust by the USAF's attempts to wipe out all of the zombies. Yet they still came, and it was eventually decided that bombing wasn't the answer. The T-Virus had been released after Umbrella failed to negotiate with Albert Wesker, who pulled the trigger on the apocalypse by systematically releasing stocks of T-Virus throughout the world via computer. The virus spread quickly through the US, and before anybody knew what was going on, mutated creatures lurched, crawled and slithered through alleys through towns all over America – The government practically disintegrated, and so out of the smoking remains out of what had once been the world, resistance emerged to try and stop the zombies. War raged against the zombie terror along the banks of the river Thames in London, battles against the plague were waged in Tokyo, and the rest of the human population fled underground. Yet the zombies kept coming. Despite the fact an antidote had been obtained, more zombies were created and armies of creatures roamed the countries of what had once been North and South America, Europe and Asia. The seemingly unlimited zombie forces put a strain on ammo supplies, which were hurriedly removed from air force and army bases around the world, and were smuggled underground for the various resistance groups to use. Yet the number of zombies and creatures outweighed the resistance nearly five to one.

The resistances kept in contact via stolen radios and still functioning telegraph poles, but the latter were hard to come by. 

Leon was one of the lucky survivors of what was now labelled as 'Zombie day', along with various other survivors of the first zombie disaster, and a girl he'd grown quite close to – Claire Redfield. The young girl Sherry was also safe, but she held close to Claire for most of the time, even sleeping in her room. The main base underground was a constructed concrete bunker, secretly built underground in times of war by the US government, now completely decayed. It had a living capacity of nearly 200,000 – So there was plenty of rooms to spare, and lots of rooms were assigned ammunition storage.

The world was now merely Zombies versus humans, the hunters versus the hunted. 

The problem was that the humans were quite often the hunted.

A sad smile pinched Jill's lips.

"Yeah…We'd all be normal people if this hadn't happened"

"And here we are" Claire said, edging closer to Leon "Scrounging for food like rats"

"All we can do to stay alive" Leon said, turning to her.

He gently placed his hand on hers, her fingers linked his. She smiled at him, and leaned against his shoulder.

"Do you think…Chris is okay?" she asked, softly.

"I'm sure he is" Leon replied.

Claire swallowed.

"You're the only guy I really admire, Leon" she whispered.

Leon gave her a squeeze.

"Same goes for you, babe"

He realised he'd used the word 'babe'. 

"Whoops…Sorry, no sexual intentions meant there" he apologised.

She grinned.

"Apology not needed, but accepted anyhow"

There was a yell from the front.

"Okay guys, let's get ready to rock and roll! Two minutes, maximum until we reach the Arubia building"

Leon nodded.

"Was that a city bank?" Luke asked. 

"I think so – But one of the huge kinds, a skyscraper I think" Leon replied.

"Right" Luke said, nodding "I thought it was weird they said 'drop them off on the twenty-fifth floor'"

"They've got great imaginations" Jill said "No, the ground floor's too boring, why not drop us off about two hundred feet above the ground?" she added, sarcastically.

They all became aware of the chopper leaning in towards an enormous glass building, spare rays of sunlight reflecting off its mirror like surface.

"How do we get in?" Luke asked.

Leon shook his head, wonderingly.

"How do you think?"

The helicopter turned toward the building, and suddenly the air was filled with the staccato thudding of the chopper's built in minigun.

There was the sound of glass smashing, and when the chopper lurched back with its side parallel to the building, they all saw seven or eight windows on their destination floor completely shattered.

"Ah" Luke said, simply.

"That's our entry point" Claire declared "Let's get ready to jump"

The chopper got closer and closer, as close as it could without its blades tearing into the building itself, and Leon found himself poised on the edge of the door, the thumping blades whipping up his hair into a frenzy as the chopper got close.

"Okay!" the pilot yelled "I reckon we've got five minutes before Umbrella's Terror-patrol moves down here again, so be quick!" 

Five minutes?

Damn, Umbrella were getting better all the time. A demented faction of Umbrella still existed known as Terra-Umbrella, whose avowed aim was Umbrella's domination of the world.

This included the destruction of any human resistance groups who posed a threat to them, which meant them. They had what the resistance called, 'Terror Squads' usually consisting of helicopters and grunts who would shoot on sight and without mercy. 

"GO! GO! GO!" The pilot screamed, and Leon clipped on the zip wire attached to a winch on the chopper, and fired its end into one of the solid steel support struts of the building using its custom launcher, designed by some of their engineers to scale large buildings in air-transport. The head buried itself into the steel, and Leon clipped himself on.

With one push, he slid down the fifteen-foot length of the blades, and into the side of the building. He stepped onto the surface, disconnected and jumped inside, withdrawing his M16.

Claire, Jill and Luke followed in quick succession. 

"Okay" Leon said, turning to his compatriots "Let's find this cache of food the Air-force supposedly dropped" 

They were all sceptical about the intelligence they had received from 'mysterious sources' in the USAF, but when food was at stake, you didn't doubt intelligence. Apart from the people who were sent out to get it.

There were assorted moans.

They spun around, and out of the gloominess of the office they had landed in lurched five familiar looking creatures, all rotting, pale white drool leaking down their decomposing chins. Eyes blank, mouths open and hungry. They had just found their lunch. All four of them were dressed in ragged office uniforms, a Christmas tie hanging off one of the lost souls bodies. One of the creatures gurgled loudly, a nauseating, bloodthirsty snarl that came right from the throat.

Leon was the first to open fire, feeling the assault rifle jerk in his grip as he unleashed a torrent of bullets into one of the creatures, bullets thudding into it and sending fountains of scarlet blood splashing against the work surface it stood in front of, the creature jerking spastically as if it was a Z-list extra in an old Cowboy movie.

Claire's M16 demolished the second zombies kneecaps, bullets shattering the bone quickly, the creature dropping on its front, knees snapping with a nauseating wet crunch. The third took four accurate shots in the head from Jill, the creature toppling over onto one of its shattered comrades. The fourth was dealt with by Luke, who simply shot it again and again with his 12-bore shotgun until it fell on its back, its stomach the consistency of mashed potato.

"Right" Leon said "After that little interruption, I think we can get on with it" 

They scoured the office space, every now and then coughing on the dusty air that lingered in the place. Abandoned desktops covered with papers were the dominant features, old coffee cups turned over, their dry contents spread over old print-outs like an unwanted mould.

Which it now was.

"Yuck" Jill said, seeing the furred brown mass that had once been coffee "I'll never think of coffee the same way again"

Leon raised an eyebrow in bemusement.

"You're revolted at mouldy coffee, yet you happily blow the brains out of a decomposing, walking corpse?"

"I don't know" she said, shrugging "I guess there's a difference"

Claire grinned.

"No shit" she said, poking around one of the old and extremely dead photocopiers.

"HEY!"

They all turned, to see Luke waving at them from the open doorway to the next room.

"I think I found it!"

All of them ran towards him, bundling into the room.

Sure enough, only a few feet from where Luke stood, were two large crates. It probably contained about five days worth of food supplies for the soldiers and their families, but not much for the civilians. There were civilians in the base, but not an enormous amount, and anybody old enough was fighting. Therefore, breeding was encouraged but not to such an extent they'd be impossible to feed.

"That's what we want" Leon said "Come on, we'd better move"

In twos, they carried the food crates to their entrance point, where they hooked them onto the zipwire, where they were hauled back in to the copter. 

As they hooked up the last load, Claire turned to Leon.

"Come on, let's get back" she said.

"I'll be along in a minute" Leon said, running back into the office.

"DAMNIT LEON!" he heard Luke yell.

Leon just wanted to make sure he hadn't missed something. His head flicked through the second office. Yes…he ran up to a square object on the ground, and blew the dust off its surface.

Beneath the layer of dust was a label that proudly declared it to be a box of twelve assault rifle clips.

The box had been wedged under a workbench, so he yanked it out.

Then, the room was bathed in an unnatural white light that made Leon squint as he tried to make out its source…the light swept over him, and as he looked, Leon could see a blackened silhouette with roaring, thumping blades hovering outside the windows.

An Umbrella terror squad.

"Not good! NOT GOOD!" he exclaimed, running back towards the smashed windows from where he'd come. There was a deafening shatter of glass, and Leon looked behind to see the minigun of the chopper letting rip, its deafening chatter filling the air as Leon ran, the bullets it fired hammering into the floor just behind Leon.

He saw his own helicopter up ahead.

Leon stopped by the gap, and hurled the box into the chopper.

"WHAT'S GOING ON!" Claire cried.

"TERROR-SQUAD!" Leon yelled back.

"THEN GET ON BOARD!" she replied, indicating with her hand that she wanted him to get into the chopper.

Leon looked towards the light, which was now moving quickly down the building.

"NO TIME!" he yelled, disconnecting the cable himself, allowing it to flop down the side of the helicopter.

"LEON!" Claire cried "PLEASE!"

"I'LL BE OKAY!" he shouted back "I'LL FIND ANOTHER WAY OUT!" 

He nodded encouragingly, and ran down the corridor. He could hear the helicopter, their helicopter, hurtle down the side of the building and towards the other end.

Then, Leon felt the world seemingly explode as he ran, a lethal wall of glass exploding outwards behind him as the determined Umbrella chopper fired once more.

He looked up ahead, and tried to consider his options.

Maybe, if he calculated this right…

Leon fired a few bullets into the glass wall up ahead. It shattered under the impact, and within seconds he could see Claire and Jill in the hatch of the helicopter as it hovered close to the building. He felt some sharp pain in his head as he ran against the falling glass.

_Almost there…_

He picked up the pace, and then in one swift movement, leapt out of the window. He almost hung in mid air, time slowing as he leapt, feet kicking against the air below.

Leon realised he wouldn't make it. Not by a few inches, but by about two feet.

Then, Leon felt a hand grab his, and he suddenly felt as if his arm was about to be torn from its socket as he dangled in the air. He felt dazed, and as he was dragged onto the helicopter, he fell unconscious as the _ratta-tat _of the minigun on their helicopter fire on the Umbrella chopper…and that was all he heard before he passed out, gunfire perforating his thoughts as he fell into a deep sleep.

**END OF PART ONE**

Authors Note: This is a return to my roots, I felt an action adventure coming on and now I'm writing it, as well as my other romances involving Chris & Jill!

Hope you like it! 

-Mark 'Manix' Odell


	2. The mission

Leon slowly awoke from a fiery nightmare into familiar grey surroundings. He realised that he was lying on his back, his head propped on a pillow and his body on an adequately soft mattress. As his eyes slowly focused to his gloomy surroundings, he knew where he was. The medical room.

He was…injured? Couldn't be that much, he didn't feel any pain in his legs or arms, so he obviously hadn't broken anything. 

Leon slowly sat up, his green camouflage jacket and shirt standing out against the trousers he'd worn nearly every day since he'd arrived in Raccoon City on that fateful day on September 28th, 1998. It was now approaching the summer of 2002. Nearly four years after he'd first met the zombies that haunted his dreams still. 

He sat up, and touched his forehead.

He winced in pain. 

"Agh- Damn that hurts" he muttered.

"Relax, Leon - it's just a cut" Chief Medic Spike Reeman advised him from the other side of the room. Reeman was washing his hands at the sink as usual, and then walked along the racks of medical equipment and supplies that they received and scavenged regularly up to Leon, and sat in a chair beside the bed.

"How are you feeling?" he asked Leon.

Leon glared at him.

"How do YOU think, smartass?" Leon growled.

Reeman sniffed.

"It was a matter of fact question actually, Leon" 

"I feel awful," Leon said, slumping back into the pillow. 

"You're lucky that your patrol group took you away when they did – You could be a zombie's vol-au-vent by now"

Leon sat up again. 

"How's Jill and Claire?" he asked.

"They're fine. It seems that shooting that glass too close-"

"Yeah – I made a mistake, okay!!" Leon snapped at Reeman.

Reeman shifted.

"Please yourself" he said, and stalked out of the room.

Leon sat up slowly, and then sat on the edge of the bed. When he became confident that he could stand up again without falling headlong onto the concrete floor, he rose unsteadily to his feet. He walked slowly out of the room, and picked his way through the labyrinth of corridors past other resistance members either going about their business, fetching supplies or getting ready for sentry duty down in the sewers. 

'Nightwatch' as it was called was the most dangerous of all the zombie watches that occurred during the 24-hour day that everybody on earth experienced, and in the sewers it was even worse.

Night was dangerous, because there are other things out there, besides the zombies. At night, when many of these creatures were awake they tried to find food – you. Hunters were the worst. They were silent Attackers, whom you would only know were there until they shrieked their horrific attack cry and jumped down on you.

Leon made his way through various featureless grey corridors in the underground base their resistance occupied. His boots clicked on the smooth concrete floor, and he tried to remember, through his fuzzy mind, where the Operations Room was. 

He continued his walk, and after a few false starts, found the door crudely labelled 'OPS ROOM'. He walked through the door into the hustle-bustle of the Operations room. It was quite a big room, about thirty feet across and about forty feet long. It was filled with machinery, connected up to generators that functioned several storeys below the Operations Room. It was these Generators that gave the base its power – without them, it was nothing.

The centre of the room was a large table, covered with a map of the city and its outer limits. The room was full of people, all sitting at machines and doing something or walking around doing very little. 

As Leon walked in, he caused little attention. On one side of the room, near to where he was, a friendly young face popped up behind a console. It was the face of 22-year old Rebecca Chambers.

"Hi!" she said. She hadn't changed for four years – it was unbelievable. Admittedly she was a little more knowledgeable about what they were up against, but her size hadn't changed. She still acted virtually the same too; she still was referred to as 'kid' despite her insistence that she was not. She grinned like a madman, and waved at him. 

His eyes rolled, she still behaved like a kid.

"Hi Rebecca" he called back, smiling. 

They'd only met after Chris had introduced them, and that was only six months ago. 

Jill Valentine, seated at a monitor, turned and smiled at him with that famously pretty smile of hers. 

"Oh, hi Leon!" Jill said, standing up "Feeling better?"

"I still feel awful, but I guess I could be worse" he admitted to her, letting off a grin.

"We grabbed you after the window exploded – That glass sliced your forehead pretty good" 

Leon nodded, and pointed at the bandage.

"Not bad, huh?"

"You can add it to your collection" Jill joked.

Leon laughed quietly, and then he turned to her.

"Thanks for saving my life" he said.

She shrugged.

"No problem. I've done it often enough"

"As have I…" Leon pointed out. 

Rebecca appeared beside Jill.

"Is the burn okay?" Rebecca asked.

"It's fine Becky, absolutely fine" Leon said, and smiled at her.

Rebecca blushed.

He turned so he could get both of them in view at the same time.

"Anything new?" Leon enquired, knowing he'd get a negative answer.

Jill shook her head.

"Nope, it's dead out there – If you get my meaning"

Leon nodded, knowing exactly what she was talking about. 

"Food's a bit down though" Rebecca chipped in "Willoughby, Fredrickson and Carlos are out on the next food raid in about an hour" 

Leon wasn't in charge. There was only one real leader, Imanhoe, and he co-ordinated attacks on the zombies, night-raids and out-of-town missions. Leon was a tough guy – After two years of fighting zombies, what else could you call him? There were only a few men tougher than Leon – and one of them was Chris. Yet Chris was missing. He'd gone out on another night mission to seize a weapons cache that was rumoured to be hidden in an air force base about thirty miles north of the city. It was obvious to Jill that Rebecca had a crush on Leon, which was quite funny really – however, Leon's real love interests remained a secret. Leon was also quite a good leader. Having started off naïve and unprepared, he was now more prepared than he ever could be and had developed an aura of respect that quite a lot of males in the underground home of the resistance lacked.

"Imanhoe's got his pants in a twist over the weapons that Chris was supposed to get" Jill said "He's screwed up right now, so expect a damned rude answer if you try to talk to him"

Rebecca nodded in strong agreement.

"Yeah, earlier I brought him the report from C-Team's food raid three days ago, and when he asked if I had D-Team's too, he then practically bit my head off when I said I didn't!!"

She shook her head.

"Why does that guy have to swear so much, it's not as if I'm a zombie or anything, I mean jeez…"

Leon nodded.

"I understand Becky. I get the picture"

There was a clang behind them. Leon spun on his feet to see that the door had opened, and Claire Redfield, the younger sister of Chris had walked in. She wore blue jeans and her famous red jacket on top of a black T-Shirt. 

She saw Leon, and her melancholy face improved.

"Leon!" she said, and gave him a strong hug "Thank god you're okay!" 

Stunned by her reaction, Leon struggled to find words to say.

"Uh…it's good to see you Claire," he said.

Claire drew back, smiling now.

"I was worried there – Those zombies were sure tough creeps, huh?" 

Leon nodded.

"Right on"

Her hand pulled out the twin semi-automatic Berettas she carried around with her all the time. Whenever she felt slightly emotional her hand travelled down to her weapons.

It was like she wanted to feel secure, she'd told him once. 

"It's good to see you in one piece – you could be in several by now"

Leon laughed.

"Well I'm not yet, so be on your toes" 

Claire laughed softly. 

She turned to Jill and Rebecca.

"What's new?"

"Nothing. A little food shortage as I said to Leon, but apart from that – everything's just like usual"

"That bad, huh?" Claire pointed out. 

There was a long sullen silence. Things were never particularly easy down here – apart from starvation, thirst, decapitation, infection and burning - things could have been a treat. 

"LEON!!" there was a loud and aggressive call from across the room that made five or six computer operators look up, and gulp.

Jill, Rebecca and Claire gave him the kind of look you would give to a condemned prisoner whom you felt sorry for. Leon nodded, and jogged across the room, and up some metal steps towards the office where Imanhoe sat most of the time. Leon didn't like Imanhoe – Imanhoe was a brash, arrogant but unfortunately very clever man who had a short temper and zero tolerance for people like Leon. 

He stepped into the office, where Imanhoe sat – strangely quiet for the person he usually was.

"You wanted to see me?" Leon said, his voice dry and not at all afraid.

"Yes…" Imanhoe said, turning around. Imanhoes' face was stony and uncompromising. He glared at Leon with two bright green eyes, and then began to speak.

"Leon…You nearly got yourself killed today"

Leon nodded, apologetically.

"I'm sorry"

"Leon, I don't want an apology…I want to tell you to not to practically kill yourself in future – Damn, you're one of my best fighters, you're important to me…to all of us" 

He sat down.

"You're one of the reasons people still have hope around here, one of the reasons people still have the courage to fight"

He looked up at Leon

"And you ain't no good to us if you get killed, do I make myself clear?" 

Leon nodded.

"Permission to be smug, sir"

Imanhoe rolled his eyes.

"Permission granted"

Leon grinned, expansively.

"Now get outta here, and get some rest. I'm bumping you up to the next assignment, when you're ready"

Leon shifted in his seat as Imanhoe dimmed the lights, Jill sat just behind him and Claire to his left. Also with them was young Luke, leaning back idly in his seat, and from the popping sound that emanated from him every now and then, was obviously chewing some bubblegum. Leon didn't even know it had existed anymore, so the thought of Bubblegum startled him.

"Okay people" Imanhoe said, glaring at Luke, who promptly stopped chewing under his baleful gaze "Listen up"

He pulled down a projector sheet that was fixed to the wall of the Briefing room, a fairly small room which, with their dry humour they described as 'The Small Room' which like the rest of the underground complex was made entirely out of concrete, with rough concrete floors. 

Metal chairs were scattered across the room like litter, only ones that were needed were actually sitting up. Imanhoe hated untidy people, and hated more people who ate while he talked. Which was not a good look out for Luke.

He pressed a button, and suddenly the sheet was illuminated with a complex map, streets and highways covering it like varicose veins and small grey, red and green blobs indicating various buildings. Across the top part of the map was written 'GREGAVILLE AND THE OUTER LIMITS' 

"Right" he said "This is a big out-of-town mission, so it is essential you listen hard"

A short silence, mainly for effect, then…

"As you all know, Chris Redfield disappeared about a week ago, approximately thirty miles north of here at an abandoned Airbase" 

He raised his hand, and spread two stained fingers.

"First objective: Capture the Weapons cache, and bring it back here. Second objective: Investigate Chris's disappearance, and find what you can"

Jill raised her hand.

"Yes, Jill?"

"A question – How do we get out of the city?"

Imanhoe smiled.

"I was just getting to that"

He pointed to a white, black-edged box somewhere to the north.

"This is an old vehicle compound, where there are a lot of old vehicles, including one or two army Jeeps that should still be working, but there are plenty of spare parts around if repairs or replacements are needed"

"Sir" Claire raised her hand "Replacements are needed - He's called Luke"

Everybody, apart from Luke, snickered.

"Can it, Claire" he snapped.

"The vehicle compound, unfortunately, is not only just on the border of the outer limits, but also in Terra-Umbrella's territory – But a sneaky night infiltration should get you in and then you'll be able to break out of the compound and continue your mission"

"Sir" Leon asked "How do we get there without encountering zombies?"

"Take the sewer route – It stinks, but it's scenic"

There were one or two laughs.

"We can give you the weapons and ammo we can, but apart from that we can't give you that much more than an average patrol group – Although maybe we can spare a few extra clips for you"

He nodded.

"That'll be all. You're leaving tonight, 11pm – So get some rest before then"

Leon adjusted the strap on his M16, and then gently helped Claire into the knee-deep filth of the sewer tunnel.

"Yeuch" she wrinkled her nose "We are going to seriously stink"

"Well, we only have to walk IN the sewage until we reach the end of this section of the tunnel"

She grinned. Then, she squeezed his hand.

"And we've got each other"

Leon blushed a little.

"Yeah" he said.

"Um…" Jill was also standing in the sewage, drumming her fingers on her hip "…Don't want to interrupt any 'moments' here, but we are standing knee-deep in sewage"

The smell was absolutely awful, Leon tried to block out the all-permeating stink, but with little success.

"Okay" Rebecca said, jumping into the sewage with a splash "Let's go!"

Luke rolled his eyes, and jumped in after.

Apart from the splashing sound of them all wading through the stinking sewage, there were no other sounds. Apart from the persistent _drip-drip _of water from mysterious cracks in the ceiling and mysterious scrabbling sounds in the walls, there was nothing else to hear.

They were all overwhelmingly glad to reach the other end, to haul themselves out of the reeking muck.

"Phew" Luke said, trying to waft the smell away from his legs "We stink"

"At least if one of us farts nobody'll notice" Leon pointed out. 

Claire laughed, followed by Jill, Rebecca and Luke.

They walked down the concrete platform that bordered the sewer tunnel in single file,

Their boots clicked on the concrete, echoing loudly, the sounds ricocheting off the circular walls and down the tunnel.

"Keep your eye out for hunters" Jill warned "We had five in here two days ago, we might have more here now"

"Right" Leon said.

They walked and walked, and most of the time silently. You didn't risk chatting that much when you were in the sewer tunnels, you didn't know how far your voice could carry.

It took twenty minutes to reach the sewer ladder, which was situated right at the end of the tunnel.

Rebecca stared at the ladder.

"The only way is up" she commented, as Leon mounted it, climbing up towards the closed manhole cover.

He grasped its edges, and heaved. 

With a screeching groan, the lid reluctantly moved, and Leon pushed it open. He exhaled, and peeked out of the top.

Leon could see the deserted street, abandoned shops and a coffee shop that still had a few circular tables sitting outside, some upright but others lying on their side, paper cups rolling around on the ground, creating faint rattling sounds as they met small sharp pieces of debris from the buildings that made up the street. The other sound was of the wind sowing down the abandoned street, a few stars creating an eerie blue glow through the cloud layer, making the place seem even deader than usual. 

Leon gave them the all-clear signal, they cautiously climbed out into the cool night, the wind howling through their guts.

Leon nodded at them, and they walked, in pairs this time, Leon with Claire, Jill with Rebecca and Luke bringing up the rear.

Their boots crunched on gravel-like debris, all of them looking around at the abandoned or bombed out buildings.

Some buildings were almost totally intact, with little damage done, while others looked as if somebody had taken a giant ice cream scoop and gouged a huge gash in the side of them. 

"To think…" Claire said softly "That people lived here once. Ordinary people"

There were a few moans up ahead. They stopped dead in their tracks. 

"Oh shit…" Leon muttered "Zombies"

Seven of them, dressed in ragged civvies clothing lurched down the street towards them. To the zombies, they were food, and nothing more.

They raised their weapons to counter the zombie threat, when with a soul-shattering crash of glass the window of a shop the zombies happened to be passing exploded outwards, shards of glass crashing over the street like solid rain. Out leapt three dark shapes, which landed on top of four of the zombies, and in a few seconds there was the revolting sound of tearing flesh, ripping sinew and crunching bone – accompanying this was the cold, bloody screech that sent a shiver through their spines…The cry of the hunter.

The three hunters, having ripped apart their zombie prey in a matter of seconds and having gorged upon the putrid carcasses just as quickly, turned, still hungry towards the four humans.

Leon gulped.

"Fire" he said, quickly, and within seconds they withdrew their weapons and the staccato snigger of gunfire filled the air as it so often did, Leon, Claire and Jill taking one hunter each, while Rebecca and Luke gave the three remaining zombies a baptism of lead.

Then the abrupt noise of guns and mayhem ceased, silence filling the air once again, apart from the lonely sounds of the wind.

"Okay" Leon said, lowering his smoking M16 "Why don't we just get to the compound and save all our ammo now by switching to Beretta's or just avoiding creatures now, huh?"

"Good idea" Claire said "We need ammo for the whole trip, so we'd better save"

"Now we've decided that" Jill said, stretching "We'd better find this vehicle compound"

The vehicle compound had a high fence, but the gate was hanging off its hinges, so they entered the wire fence-bound compound with complete ease. 

"There" Jill pointed to a dark green jeep, parked against the wall. They were so used to living in the dark that torches were only used when it was pitch black, and so this murky blueness was a piece of cake for them.

"That was easy enough" Rebecca remarked, as they walked along aisles of abandoned cars towards the vehicles.

They heard a human voice. A shout.

"HALT! TRESPASSERS!" 

They spun around to see a black clad trooper, the distinctive logo of Umbrella emblazoned on his uniform top.

"I speak too soon" Rebecca groaned, as they all ran up to the jeep, Leon yanking open the drivers seat and jumping in, Claire leaping into the passenger seat as the others climbed onto the back of it.

"Hey!" Luke's eyes lit up as he spied a Rocket launcher on a tripod leaning on the back of the jeep "Nice piece of firepower!"

"I'M using it" Rebecca insisted, as Leon quickly hotwired the car. There was a spark, a curse and then a roar from the engine. Leon gunned the engine, and with a screech of tyres that practically removed all of the rubber from them, took off across the wide-open concrete space that had presumably once been a car-park, pursued by a hail of gunfire from the guards. 

Leon gripped the wheel, and yanked it hard to the left as he heard the cough of gunfire speckle the rear left corner of the jeep, watching in the rear view mirror as Jill, Rebecca and Luke dropped to the deck, keeping low amidst the gunfire.

As he looked out of the window, Leon spied a truck…driving right into the gap where he'd tried to leave the compound! It was their only means of escape!

"They've blocked off the exit!" Jill yelled "What do we do?"

"It's called a rocket launcher!" Claire cried back as Leon took the car into a vicious skid that nearly took it straight into the chain link fence "Use it!"

"ON WHAT?" Jill yelled back "THE TRUCK?"

"IMPROVISE!!" Leon shouted. 

Rebecca eyed the launcher, and tried to stand it up.

"Hey!" Luke said, loudly above the roar of the engine and the constant rattle of gunfire "You couldn't hit a barn door at thirty paces with a beretta, what makes you think you'd be able to hit anything with that?"

Rebecca glared at him.

"As a matter of fact" she said, preparing to load the launcher "I have been practicing"

Leon found that the jeep was screaming towards the fence nearest to the Umbrella truck, and gritted his teeth as he swung the wheel savagely

"Hold on, people!" Leon shouted "We might scrape the fence a bit!"

Claire nodded, and gripped the seat as Leon brought the jeep around in an arc that nearly sent it through the fence completely.

Leon's face took on an expression that stated pure determination as the jeep scraped the fence, sparks dancing off the affected areas as they dragged along it before shooting off in the opposite direction towards the opposite fence. Beyond that fence was a grassy field with the main highway stretching off into the distance like a long black strip of liquid liquorice.

But there was still a fence.

"If you can't use that rocket launcher in less than fifteen seconds we're going to be flesh paste!" Leon yelled "At the speed we're going, we won't stop in time!"

Rebecca nodded hurriedly, and fumbled a rocket into the chamber, setting it up as Luke released a hail of gunfire at the inanely inaccurate Terra-Umbrella soldiers.

"Damn it!" Rebecca cursed as the launcher swayed wildly in her grip.

"BECCA!" Leon yelled "FIRE THE DAMNED THING!!"

There was a hiss, a shriek and they saw the white rocket shoot out in front of them, leaving behind a white vapour trail as it screamed across the compound before impacting on the wire fence directly ahead. There was an explosion, and in a few seconds the wire fence was torn apart by a powerful orange fireball, sending burned pieces of wire hurtling through the air as the fence burst.

All that was left was a wide, and ragged hole in the chain link.

"GO! GO!" Claire yelled as Leon accelerated, and took the jeep through the hole in the fence, out onto the grassy field and tearing up grass and muddy lumps of rubbish before bouncing back onto the main road, and before the Umbrella Soldiers could react, in a belch of dark dust, the jeep was gone, speeding off down the highway. 

# END OF PART TWO


	3. Hidden passions, shrouded secrets

Leon and Claire lay on the back of the jeep as it rattled down the road at a speed that would have normally prompted even the slowest of Traffic Officers to pull them over.

Leon breathed in the air, they'd only been travelling for maybe twenty minutes but Leon had turned control of the vehicle over to Jill, Luke sitting in the passenger seat with his M16 pivoted on the window, ready to shoot at any hunters or zombies that got too close to the jeep.

He looked over at Claire, her auburn hair blowing slightly in the wind. He tried to hide the fact that he felt attracted to her, and not too successfully most of the time. Carlos always made fun of him about this, whenever Leon found his eyes wandering over Claire's gently swaying hips as she walked off, Carlos whispered in that smooth South American voice of his 

'Watchin' a ladies backside is impolite, Leon'

This wasn't as bad as it got a lot of the time, sometimes Leon found himself being forced to discreetly 'relieve' himself of the strain of seeing Claire in the toilets or in his room alone.

Once he caught her getting changed, and he'd gone the colour of beetroot. He told himself he was a pervert for fantasising about Claire in her lingerie, but…he couldn't help it. He'd grown very close to her, they were very close personal friends…but somehow, he wanted more than that. Something was incomplete in his love life, and he knew that Claire Redfield was the one he wanted to fill it up.

He slipped his hand into Claire's own, she looked up at him as he looked down at her. He smiled, reassuringly.

She smiled back, crystal eyes shining into his.

Claire herself was also missing something from her life too, and that thing was Leon.

Claire, more often than not, loved seeing Leon wearing his combats – He looked very sexy in those trousers he wore, a fact which left her lying awake at night and she found that using her fingers was the only way to prevent her from banging on his door, throwing herself on him and riding him like stallion. She remembered one time she was getting changed, and Leon had walked in, gone red and ran out in embarrassment. She also felt a little embarrassment, but something awoke in her, reminding her that she had enjoyed his gaze on her body.

Friends? That was nice, but 'nice' was such an awful word in Claire's opinion, it made things as if she'd never be with Leon. Ever.

_Truly, Madly, Deeply…_

Those were the words that described it. 

"Claire? You okay?" she heard him ask.

She was thrown from her pleasant thoughts, and returned to reality.

"Mm? Me? Oh, yeah, yeah…" 

"You just seem…a little distant" 

"Well…" she shrugged "Aren't we all?"

"Guess so" 

They looked out over the landscape rushing by. Not far off was what looked like semi circular buildings, and some other concrete buildings not far from them.

"I think that's it" Leon said, and turned to the cab "JILL!"

"YEAH! I'VE SEEN IT!" Jill announced. 

Jill pulled the jeep off the main road, and onto the grass. The noticeable change was the rhythm of the wheels, the jeep bounced like a rumbling roller-coaster ride as they drove ever closer to the Air Force base. The fences had long since been torn down, the place had obviously not been used for many years judging by the equipment scattered around the place, the jetfighter with its cockpit still open, the cracked runway with grass growing through it. 

Claire frowned.

"Abandoned…and empty"

Leon nodded. Most places were abandoned nowadays, but were very rarely empty.

"This is weird" Leon muttered "Way too weird"

As the jeep crunched over a fallen segment of Chain-link fence, they scanned the horizon. The only sound was that of the howling wind blowing through holes in the old buildings.

Ghost base, not ghost town, Leon thought.****

The jeep screeched to a halt, and all of them climbed out.

"Right" Leon said, tapping his Desert Eagle as if to relieve some form of inner stress "Let's choose a temporary camp, and then we can take a look around"

"Okay" Rebecca said, hoisting her weapon off the back of the jeep "I guess Luke's in charge of that, huh Luke?"

Luke gave her a lopsided smile, as if in bemusement or irritation.

Jill clambered out of the drivers seat and walked up to them, carrying a bag and her M16.

"Well whoever's got an idea as to where we should camp will go in my will – It's frigging cold out here – and dark too"

The night was a clear one, and various lights on the buildings that still functioned cast large pools of light over the flat tarmac floor, occasional sprouting clumps of grass glowing in the light as if they were radioactive. 

Living through the night was a difficult task. Because besides zombies, other creatures liked to make themselves known, creatures that would twitch at the scent of a single drop of blood.

'Bring on the Night' Leon thought.

"She's right, there might be hunters around"

There was a yelp from Rebecca. Not because of the word directly, but because Luke placed both hands on her shoulders as Leon said 'hunters'

Rebecca slapped Luke.

"Don't do that again buster, or you might just be on the receiving end of my steel-toe caps!" Rebecca warned.

Claire rolled her eyes and turned to Leon, smiling.

"Shall we?"

"Right" Leon said, and nodded. The group began to walk across the cold, wet tarmac. Their boots were the only sound, the rapid clacking noise like a clockwork mechanism that had gone very badly wrong. 

The expansive base was a shock, the city was cramped compared to this place. The bitter coldness made them shiver, the icy cold wind biting into them like an invisible predator.

Leon looked around.

"Don't see where Chris would be hiding in this place" he said to Claire. He was uncomfortable with the near-silence.

"Too right" she replied, looking around "I don't think he'd hang around in this place unless-"

"Hey, you guys!"

Leon and Claire turned to see Jill waving at them.

"What?" Leon asked, a little irritably since Claire and him had been talking.

"Look on that wall" she said, pointing with one gloved hand.

They all turned in unison, and on the control tower's main wall saw a white-framed board with what looked like a map printed on it. It was faded by sun, rain and whatever other natural elements were freely available

They approached it.

"I refuse to state the obvious and say it's a map" Leon said "So let's just take it as red that's already been said"

Rebecca peered at it.

"Pretty large base – It may take a while to search the entire base"

"And it's unsafe to do it at night" Jill said "God knows what's lurking around here at this hour"

Leon looked up at the control tower.

"There's a control room up there – As well as being able to keep watch we can use some of the computers to good use"

"What about the barracks?" Luke asked "They've got beds"

"Point taken, but I don't want to wander around the base with everything we got trying to find some beds to sleep on. If we can find anything soft, we sleep on it"

There were general nods of agreement. The decision was made.

The inside of the control tower was cleaner than they had all expected, dust wasn't that heavy around, and the staircase was thankfully free of zombies. The staircase was cramped, made out of metal and spiralled up towards the top of the tower in a worryingly hypnotic fashion.

Their first observation was how old fashioned it looked in such a modern place, disturbingly gothic for its defiantly ultra-modern concrete environment. 

"Now that…" Rebecca murmured looking up "Is one of the creepiest things I've seen since that winding staircase in The Haunting"

Claire looked at her.

"That is one of the tamest movies ever, come on!"

"Hey, the original was great!" Rebecca snapped, as they all started up the metal staircase.

"Oh, you were talking about the original? Sorry, I thought you were talking about the shoddy Jan De Bont 1999 update"

"That one was shit" Leon remarked "I thought Sound of Music was scarier"

"…And that was pretty scary" Luke added, from the back "The lederhosen did it for me"

They all laughed, the laughs bouncing off the circular concrete walls as they made their way up. The staircase wasn't all that large in retrospect, it was only seven or eight flights before they reached the steel door at the top that indicated it was the entrance to the control room.

It read 'AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY' 

They ignored the warning, and Leon twisted the handle. It opened with a touch, obviously everybody had left in such a panic they hadn't bothered to lock up when they left.

The control room was small, about the size of a front room, with a storeroom linked by a rusting metal door and a metal balcony that had no readily obvious use, the door to the balcony shut. There were lots and lots of computers, and there was a hum of electricity, hinting that the building at least had power.

"Well" Leon said, sighing deeply as he took in the large array of consoles "Looks like this will be our new home for a while. Right, let's throw our stuff down and try to get a little shut eye"

"Leon" Claire said, as everybody threw down their bags and flopped down onto the floor "Can I…talk to you for a few minutes?"

He shrugged.

"Why not?"  
"In private, preferably" she said, quietly.

Leon scratched his forehead, a little confused.

"Uh…fine, if you want"

Hauling off the strap of his heavy M16, he ushered Claire towards the door of the balcony.

Claire smiled amiably, and went out onto the balcony. Leon followed suit, closing the door behind him.

The night was cool, and dark, but shining stars gleamed down on them, as if they were diamonds catching the light of the moon, scattered across a velvet black sheet.

Claire stared up at the stars. 

"It's pretty, huh?" she asked, as Leon leaned over beside her.

"Mm? The stars…oh yeah, very" he said.

Claire turned to him, sympathy and care sculpting her face.

"Leon, what's wrong? You seem so…removed"

He shook his head, trying to avoid her gaze.

"No…it's not that…"

She looked at him, trying to catch his eye. She wanted to look into them, to see what was bugging him.

Leon looked over her beautiful, fair face. She looked radiant in the pale light, but could he tell her that? Could he?

"I'm…not as strong as I look, Claire"

She smiled, as every muscle in her face moved into a smile, Leon tingled.

"Of course you are!"

"No, really…I'm just as scared as everybody else, despite how brave and un-reactive I am…but…"

"But?" Claire prompted, gently.

"But it's not me I'm concerned for"

She tilted her head, putting her hands on her hips.

"Is it us?" she asked.

"Yes…and no"

He stared deep into her beautiful, shining eyes,

"Claire…Ever since I first met you, I've…felt something for you…and to tell the truth, I feel incomplete when you're not there, when you're not leaning against me…" 

He bowed his head, averting his gaze.

"The fact is, friends is not enough for me…" he looked up at her "Claire, I'm in love with you, I've loved you for three years, I love you now and I always will…I'm terrified of losing you, I never want to lose you – ever"

Claire felt herself tingle, felt her entire being elevated to a new type of feeling, as if she was sprouting angel wings and soaring into the sky.

"Leon…" she said, voice cracking as tears welled up in her eyes and her emotion bubbled to the surface "…I…I…"

"It's okay" he said, softly "I can understand if you don't feel that way, it's perfectly natural"

"NO!" she exclaimed, bursting with pent-up love, tears and longing "IT'S ALWAYS BEEN YOU!" she ran up to him and fell against him, clinging to his body "I…I…I LOVE YOU LEON!" 

Leon was startled, happy, sad and excited all at the same time. He timidly placed his hand on her waist, noting how good she felt underneath his hands, warm, soft, chest raising and falling in time with her breathing…

For the first time, he was very aware of who he was, that he was a man with fickle emotions and primal instincts that had to be sated. He squeezed her, and felt her grip harder as her tears began to soak into his clothes.

Leon very gently tipped her chin upwards, allowing her face to be directly in front of his, tears still dribbling off her cheeks. 

"You're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen…" he whispered "Nothing compares, nothing in the entire world"

She smiled, a little bashful.

Leon moved in very gently, stroking her cheek as tenderly as he could manage. Her own hand touched his. Then, his hands slipped down to her waist, then onto her backside, soft and well formed. 

He softly kissed her on the lips, only for a few seconds…but she quickly wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed herself onto him again. The second kiss was harder, but still only lips. Then, Claire widened her teeth a little, allowing Leon to force his tongue into her mouth, her own darting into his. They kissed passionately for maybe five minutes…

Even in a world that had already ended, love still lived on.

When they pulled away, a little trickle of saliva attached their lips for just a moment.

They both grinned, and kissed once again.

"Uh Claire…" Leon whispered, in between kisses "Why don't we go to bed?"

She nodded.

"No sleeping, of course…"

"Of course…" he grinned impishly. 

Claire turned back towards one of the windows, where the others were sleeping.

"How're we going to get away with this?" she asked, gripping his shoulder blades.

"Um…" Leon looked in through the window "How about the storeroom?"

She nodded, vigorously with a huge grin on her face.

"Let's do it" she whispered.

They tiptoed back inside, over the recumbent forms of Jill, Rebecca and Luke, and towards the storeroom. Claire eased open the door, and they stepped inside. Leon flicked on the switch, and closed the door. 

He forced Claire up against the wall, kissing her passionately and cupping her breasts with his hands, squeezing them softly. She groaned, happily, and placed her hand onto his groin where his arousal was immediately obvious.

She grinned.

"Someone's a little excited" she teased, as Leon kissed her neck.

He unzipped her jacket, she unzipped his. This ceremony of undressing each other kept going until Leon was only in his boxers, and Claire was in her bra and panties.

She kissed him, and gazed him in the eyes.

"I want you" she whispered, lustfully "I want you right here and now, urgently and completely…Look at me like you did before, but don't blush this time"

He grinned.

"I won't" he whispered, gently reaching around her to unclip her bra, slipping it off her body and then hooking his thumbs and forefingers around her panties. He felt her own hook the elastic of his boxers, and they both dropped them.

She looked at him, nipples hard and aroused. 

"Whoa…hello big boy" she whispered, pressing herself against him.

Leon reached across to the wall…and turned out the light.

Rebecca was half awake. She knew exactly what was happening, and she was trying not to laugh. She was also trying not to cry.

She had, she admitted, a crush on Leon…but Claire was on the receiving end, not her. She heard them moan and groan, heard them pant and gasp on the other side of the door. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to scream or giggle.

When they screamed their climax together, Rebecca wasn't sure if she was going to explode herself, with laughter or despair.

Rebecca heard the door open, and quickly shut her eyes.

"Wow…" she heard Leon say "You were…fantastic, did you take lessons in the art of making explosive love?"

"I didn't, I guessed" she replied, coyly.

"You're amazing"

"You too, big boy" Claire whispered, in a sultry tone of voice. They kissed again, before various sounds of material brushing against skin indicated them redressing themselves…

And then, through half open eyes, Rebecca saw them kiss again before sitting down and lying there in each others arms. They gazed at each other lovingly as they snuggled up.

"I love you Leon" she whispered. 

"And I love you" he replied.

Soon they were asleep. And so was Rebecca.

A loud clanging woke them up. As Leon's mind slowly cleared, he blinked and looked around.

Not light yet. Obviously he'd been asleep for a few hours, but not that many…

_Clang…clang…clang…clang…_

Leon's ears pricked up. It was a soft noise, like somebody tiptoeing up a metal staircase.

_Someone tiptoeing up a metal staircase…?_

Resting Claire against the wall, he stood up, a little groggily, and walked over to the computer consoles. He located the security camera console, and flicked a fewswitches experimentally. The screens hummed, and pinged joyously to life.

He looked at the options on screen.

Control tower Cameras (y/n)?

He pressed 'Y' on the keypad.

Suddenly various images were lit up on the various screens, some of them…

Leon's eyes widened, face draining of all colour.

_Oh shit…_

Up the staircase, very slowly, walked a Tyrant 2. It had to be, the huge muscled, hulking greyish body with a sprig of lethal claws bursting from one arm, the other like a spiked mace. It's eyes were white and emotionless, face twisted in a permanent snarl.

And it was coming up the staircase towards them.

Time to die.


	4. A nasty surprise

While it was said the camera could play tricks, Leon knew that not even a trick of the light could conjure up the image of a Tyrant on the monitor

While it was said the camera could play tricks, Leon knew that not even a trick of the light could conjure up the image of a Tyrant on the monitor.

He rubbed his eyes, as if to check he was awake. He was awake, and the creature was walking, slowly, ever so slowly up the staircase towards them. 

He assessed the situation. The probability of surviving an encounter with a Tyrant 2 in a closed glass room that was nine feet high and cramped with machinery didn't bear thinking about. Leaving his arithmetic to die horribly, he decided to concentrate on the problem in hand.

"EVERYBODY!!" he yelled "WAKE UP!!"

He heard assorted groans and stirring noises from the others, heard them wake up.

"Wuz…wuzzup?" Rebecca mumbled.

"Check the monitor"

Rebecca staggered up to the monitors, and with bleary eyes, scanned the monitors.

Her eyes widened, face went white with fear.

"Oh shit…"

"THAT'S what's up!" Leon exclaimed, giving Luke a sharp kick as Jill sat up, rubbing her eyes.

"Why am I awake?" Jill asked, a little annoyed.

"It's called a Tyrant" Leon said "I don't think I need to tell you anything else!" 

Claire slowly woke up, and grinned as she saw Leon. 

"Hey big boy…" she whispered.

"Claire" Leon kneeled down by her, stroking her arms "Get your gun ready…"

"Why?" she asked, mind still full of cotton wool and still wrapped in the passions of the previous evening.

"Tyrant" he said, softly "We fight or get out"

Claire nodded, softly, face creasing with worry.

"Right…" she said "Where?"

"On the staircase"

Claire's eyebrows crash-landed into the bridge of her nose.

"How're we going to get down?" she asked, voice firm but still allowing a trickle of fear spread through her statement.

"That's what I'm trying to work out"

There was a deep, animal growl. A primal noise that sounded as if the first predatorial organism that had crawled on all fours, the first creature to kill another creature in the infant world had just screamed back through the ages, to come ricocheting off the metal door that was their only defence between them and their hunter. 

Leon took off the safety catch of both his guns, lifting the M16 nervously towards the door.

"H-how do we prevent it from getting any further?" Luke asked, shakily as the footsteps got louder and more insistent.

Rebecca gave him an angry look, as if she was talking to a schoolchild. 

"We – shoot – the – b*stard" she said, slowly and deliberately.

"Very funny, Rebecca!" Luke snapped "But has it occurred to you, little miss know-it-all, that a Tyrant could soak up every clip we have at close range and still have time to use us as sponge fingers in its coffee?!"

"One, yes I did know that, all we have to do is push it back, and two, Tyrants don't drink coffee!" Rebecca snapped.

"Would you two please just SHUT UP!" Claire yelled.

"Well excuse me…" Rebecca began, sarcastically "…If I'm being loud, but I wasn't the one squealing like an excited girl guide when you had a raging orgasm in the store cupboard as you were introduced to Mr. Sex-god Leon's pork sword on a regular basis!" 

There was an extremely long silence, punctuated only by the approaching Tyrant's footsteps.

"You…were listening?" Leon asked, mouth dry, voice cold.

Rebecca slapped a hand over her mouth, her extremely stupid statement creating shock in each of the team members for a different reason. Claire and Leon out of outrage and pure annoyance, Jill because she didn't know Claire and Leon were even a couple, and Luke because he hadn't heard it and was wandering why Rebecca had.

Then, a loud bang made them forget their differences and drew their attention towards the steel door. A large, vicious dent indicated exactly where the Tyrant had thumped the door. Then, with another loud jackhammer of a blow that nearly smashed the door off its hinges, another, even larger impact dent forced the only other portion of the supposedly indestructible steel door that was still flat into a sticking out piece of metal that looked like somebody had blasted a hill into the metallic surface.

There was a deafening roar, a scream from another world. 

Leon, Claire, Jill, Rebecca and Luke all felt fear begin to make the hairs on the backs of their necks stand on end, felt the cold sweat as it forced itself onto the surface of their skin and washed down their faces in a nauseating, cool flood that made them grip their weapons ever harder.

There was silence as the Tyrant prepared to deliver one final blow to the door, one final, explosive blow to their only defence against the creature.

The enormous, deafening scream of metal being torn from its hinges filled their ears, and without even hesitating, they all fired.

The staccato thundering of the weapons in the room deafened all of the Tyrant's roars of rage, and despite how little of the huge muscled grey creature they could see, they didn't need to – as long as they couldn't see it for any longer, it was fine by them.

Blood sprayed at them from the doorway as the creature absorbed every bullet sprayed at it…the thing was caught off balance, and it toppled over backwards. On a set of stairs, that is not an advisable thing to do. 

There were some hideous crunching sounds, the ricochet of metal resounded loudly in the air as the Tyrant was sent hurtling down the steps.

Some bangs indicated its progress towards the ground…and then there was silence.

"Whew" Luke breathed "We dropped it"

Leon gave him a look, and they all headed down the steps.

"Why the hurry?" Luke asked "It's dead!" 

As they hammered down the staircase, Leon shouted up

"We've fought these things before" he remarked as they reached the bottom…where the Tyrant no longer lay "And one thing you do learn is that they do NOT stay down for very long."  
They made their way out into the cool air, phosphorescent lights illuminating the path ahead of them as they ran to the nearest hangar.

"In here!" Jill barked "Wherever it is now, it will take a while to find us!"

Rebecca was the first in, followed by Luke, Jill, Claire and Leon, who gave his new lover a tender glance as she ran in before joining her, slamming the metal door behind him. He drew the deadbolt, and exhaled in relief.

"At last" Claire muttered "We're safe"

As if some sort of spiritual force was working against them that day, there was a loud, ominous click behind them.

"I wouldn't be so sure of your success, my friend" a rasping, low voice said. They all froze. As one being, they turned to see who'd said the threatening words.

A dark figure.

In a dark jumpsuit.

With immaculate blond hair, and dark shades even in the darkness of the night. There was only one person this demeanour belonged to.

Rebecca gaped.

"Wesker?!"

Albert Wesker, grinned a humourless and threatening grin.

"Hello Rebecca, my haven't you _grown_…"

She narrowed her eyes, but stepped back anyway as he took a step closer to them. 

"Well, it seems that you didn't expect to see me again" Wesker remarked with a grin.

"Well, we HOPED we wouldn't see you again" Jill spat.

Wesker tilted his head onto one side.

"So here we are. All of us. Except that there's no escape this time"  
Claire raised an eyebrow in bemusement. 

"Oh really? You and whose army?"

Wesker grinned. Suddenly, the lights in the Hangar snapped on one by one, illuminating thirty Neo-Umbrella soldiers, all with assault rifles trained on their bodies, each with their own particular target. The looming shapes of three armoured cars with bazooka attachments also became obvious as the light got brighter.

"This one" he said, coolly, still with an almighty grin on his face.

Leon held Claire close to him.

Nowhere to run this time. They were trapped. 


	5. Welcome to the biggest Lab on the face o...

"I welcome you all!" Wesker yelled above the noise, as the back of the armoured vehicle flew open, Leon and Claire blinking in the light, while they were shoved hard out of the back of it and onto a smooth, gun-metal grey floor. Leon felt like he was in some sort of surreal trance as he blinked at the floor, trying to discern his surroundings. The vehicle had to have been travelling in the pitch darkness for a few hours, and the sudden light was not simply a shock, it was agony.

"I welcome you…!" Wesker announced as Rebecca, Luke and Jill were shoved roughly into a line by several burly, masked guards "…to the most sophisticated laboratory on the face of the earth!" 

The noise was constant, machines and people, constant chatter…

Leon looked around. He gawped as his eyesight returned; the place was huge, all metal and glass, all white. Soldiers, scientists with face masks, medics…a whole menagerie of work staff, here at _this _lab!

The room they were in was shaped like a shopping mall; the only thing missing were shops and cheerful punters, because those here were anything but cheerful. The temperature was fairly reasonable, not too cold, not too hot. If Wesker's claim wasn't entirely true, then it would be damned close.

"Look at this place!" Claire gasped "It's huge!"

Wesker laughed, in a nasty way.

"Neo-Umbrella; the only group left of the great pharmaceuticals companies. They want to rebuild the earth…but for some reason, all of lab!

The room they were in was shaped like a shopping mall; the only thing missing were shops and cheerful punters, because those here were anything but cheerful. The temperature was fairly reasonable, not too cold, not too hot. If Wesker's claim wasn't entirely true, then it would be damned close.

"Look at this place!" Claire gasped "It's huge!"

Wesker laughed, in a nasty way.

"Neo-Umbrella; the only group left of the great pharmaceuticals companies. They want to rebuild the earth…but for some reason, all of _you _want to get in the way…"

"Because it was you who turned this world into a nuclear wasteland in the first frigging place!" Jill shouted, angrily.

"Watch your tongue, Ms. Valentine" Wesker shot back at her, icily "Remember, you have a gun pointed at your head. Just like the last time, hm?"

Jill narrowed her eyes.

"You are so full of sh*it" Leon spat "Do you know how many people you've killed you psycho?"

Wesker turned to Leon.

"When one person dies, people mourn; when millions die, people don't care. That's how governments thought for years"

"I think you should get a reality check" Claire replied, frostily.

"I am not here to argue with you!" Wesker barked "I'm wasting my time with you. Now we have you, we're going to make sure you can't do any more damage"

"Asshole…" Rebecca muttered.

Wesker ignored her, gesturing to the soldiers to push them forward, and quick marched them behind Wesker, who led. Luke looked confused.

"Who the hell is he?" Luke asked.

"His name is Albert Wesker" Jill said "He's switched allegiances so many times it's impossible to comprehend; and his closet is full of so many skeletons and dirty secrets that only he knows what he's done" 

Luke whistled, despite being roughly jabbed in the lower back by a grumpy soldier.

"Man, he sounds like quite a head case" Luke muttered.

"He is" Rebecca said "He's a total psycho; but when I say Psycho, I mean he's the kind of psycho who's cold and calculated about everything he does." 

"There's no real issue about conscience; he simply doesn't have one. The amount of people he's killed…" Leon shook his head "…it doesn't bear thinking of"

"Tell me" Wesker called from the front, as he marched them to a high-security elevator "Mr. Kennedy…do you know what it's like to be a father?" 

Leon was stunned by this question.

"No" Leon replied.

"Funny, neither do I" Wesker said "But from what I know, you will be in nine months…"

Claire blushed, furiously, as did Leon.

"She's not…" Leon murmured.

"She is, while she was unconscious one of my colleagues tested her; your girlfriend…" he said, as they entered the elevator "…is pregnant, Leon S. Kennedy"

There was silence all the way down, the whirring, smooth running elevator humming down into the bowels of the lab, before a slight bob indicated they had arrived.

"Well, look at it this way" Wesker stated, as the guards escorted them through a new area, a dingy, grey area lined with thick steel doors "At least the baby will grow up in 'safe' surroundings; you'll be here long enough" 

Leon looked at Wesker's neck with seething ill humour.

"It may also give Chris the status of Uncle, now _isn't _that sweet" Wesker said, sarcastically.

Claire and Jill looked up; eyes widened, jaws slackened…Chris was alive. Wesker had just said himself that he was alive, which other Chris could he possibly be talking about?

"I hope you'll enjoy your stay here" Wesker added, voice still dripping with sarcasm, Leon and Claire being shoved into one cell while the others were dispersed accordingly.

Leon was thrown forward as the door behind him slammed shut, and locked behind him.

"Chris…" Claire murmured "…you're alive…"

Leon gently took her hand, kissing her gently.

"It's okay" he whispered "We'll get out of here; with him intact"

Jill had been thrown into a cell on her own, which she didn't appreciate. The cell was well lit however, and the moment she turned towards the wall, her heart jumped. There, on the bench, lay Chris Redfield; still as ruggedly handsome as ever, even if he did look a bit beaten around. His STARS jacket, a little weary with the amount of action he'd seen, his leather jacket, combats…just as she remembered him.

She sat down next to him, slightly stroking his shoulder. 

"Chris…?" she asked.

His eyes gently opened.

"Wuh…" 

He looked directly at her.

"Jill?" he exclaimed, face creasing with delight "Oh my god!" 

He hauled her into his arms, Jill giggling like a schoolgirl as he held her tightly.

"It's so good to see you again…" she whispered, kissing his cheek and squeezing him.

"Man, I've missed you…" he said "…I've been in this god forsaken hole for a month; I wanted to get a message to you…"

He looked at the locked door, then turned to her, face bleak.

"But, you've been captured right…?" 

She nodded, glumly.

He cupped her cheek, smiling warmly at her before he kissed her ravenously on the mouth.

"It sure is good to see you again"

****

END OF PART FIVE

A/N: Sorry about the wait, the censoring and its shortness but I needed to update this sooner or later! :D Hope you like! ^_^


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